In articulated implement applications, such as front end loaders, as used in conjunction with agricultural tractors or industrial vehicles, bushings are employed to provide load distribution in pinned joints. Such bushings are typically made of DOM (Drawn Over Mandrel) tubing and parted to length and, for ease of manufacturing, are frequently surface mounted by fillet welding the bushing directly to e.g. the loader arm. However, in some applications the loading through the pin/bushing joint initiates cracking in the parent material at the weld. For example, in agricultural front end loader applications the lift cylinder-to-boom connection and the boom-to-bell crank connection are both subject to premature cracking at the weld site of such bushing configurations.
Accordingly, there is a clear need in the art for an improved bushing for use in such applications that does not have the above-described difficulties.